Ron Jeremy, a 62-year-old veteran porn actor, was to go on trial Wednesday on three counts of rape in Nevada, but the next hearing was pushed back to September after a key witness was not able to attend.
Jeremy, whose real name is Steven Raymond Scheinberg, was arraigned on Oct. 2, 2014, and pleaded not guilty. He was at the center of two other rape trials in January and March. The first jury declined to convict Jeremy after less than an hour of deliberations, and Jeremy was found not guilty of aggravated assault and coercion.
The new trial was originally scheduled for May 14, and Jeremy was recently sentenced to 30 days in jail for violating his parole on a 2008 DUI conviction.
In January, Jeremy was accused of sexual assault on two women, one of whom gave a statement to authorities, an assistant Clark County District Attorney said. Jeremy’s lawyer asked the judge to dismiss the charges against him in that case, arguing the victim had perjured herself. The judge refused to dismiss the case.
In March, Jeremy was accused of two counts of aggravated sexual assault in another incident, and another case involving sexual battery against a third woman. Jeremy’s jury could only go so far in convicting him on the three rape charges. The judge went to two days of deliberation, with a final vote of 10 to 2 that the charges were not guilty.
“Defendant Jeremy is generally well-known in the industry,” the judge wrote in his ruling. “The witnesses’ and alleged victims’ familiarity with the defendant was clear and consistent. Defendant Jeremy has been publicly known for decades … as well as being an established, accomplished and recognizable public figure. A unique feature of the case, however, is that no one appears to be at risk of severe embarrassment or professional loss. All of the victims, including the alleged victim of this case, were in consensual sex situations with defendant Jeremy and appear to have had no reason to fear being secretly videotaped.
“Additionally, only one of the alleged victims stated that the defendant made threats or used violence.”
In his argument to the judge, Jeremy’s lawyer argued that one woman was “too paralyzed by alcohol to assist in identifying the defendant” and had difficulty remembering what happened. Another woman, the lawyer said, was too embarrassed by her pregnancy to enter any details. Jeremy does not suffer from memory loss, his lawyer said.